The Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada is demanding Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham act swiftly to try to ensure the safety of Ottawa communications engineer Maher Arar.

It is also calling for an investigation into Mr. Arar's "secretive detention, interrogation and deportation" from New York after the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service accused him of having links to al-Qaeda.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was on his way to Montreal from Tunisia when he made a stopover at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sept. 26. He was arrested by the INS, questioned for nine hours without a lawyer, jailed for more than two weeks and deported to Syria, all without the knowledge of the Canadian government.

Mr. Arar left his wife and two young children vacationing in Tunisia with in-laws and they have not heard from him since.

"The detention and deportation of Maher Arar is a grave breach of both international human-rights law and Mr. Arar's rights as a Canadian citizen," said Riad Saloojee, a spokesman for the council.

Mr. Saloojee is trying to reach a lawyer who spoke with Mr. Arar "for an hour or two" after his arrest, to see whether any more information can be gleaned about what happened to the Canadian citizen and where he is now.

"It's like pulling teeth from U.S. and Canadian officials, trying to find out what's happening."

Mr. Saloojee suspects Mr. Arar is being held in jail in Syria, and worries he might be treated roughly because he did not complete his mandatory military service before he emigrated to Canada at age 17.

He said Mr. Arar's case has been the subject of "high-level negotiations" between U.S. and Canadian officials.

Mr. Arar's MP, Marlene Catterall, Ottawa West-Nepean, confirmed that senior Canadian officials met with the INS on Friday "trying to get information" about the engineer.

"I frankly am just appalled that the Americans could keep the whereabouts of a Canadian citizen secret from Canadians," Ms. Catterall said yesterday.

No one from the Department of Foreign Affairs was available for comment yesterday. Mr. Arar's wife does not know where her husband is or whether he is safe.

"Every day I hope that maybe he's going to call me, but since Sept. 26th I have heard nothing," she said in a telephone interview yesterday from Tunisia.